"We'd like our ponies," added Bert, "and you promised to show me some more how to lasso."
"And so I will!" promised the foreman. He had already given Bert a few lessons in casting the rope. Of course Bert could not use a lasso of the regulation size, so one of the cowboys had made him a little one. With this Bert did very well. Freddie also had to have one, but his was only a toy. Freddie wanted his father to call him "little cowboy" now, instead of "little fireman," and, to please Freddie, Mr. Bobbsey did so once in a while.
After Bert had been given a few more lessons in casting the lasso, the two older Bobbsey twins went for a ride on their ponies, while Mrs. Bobbsey took Flossie and Freddie for a ride in the pony cart.
It was about a week after this that the Bobbsey twins were awakened one morning by a loud shouting outside the ranch house where they slept.
"What's the matter? Have the Indians come?" asked Bert, for some of the cowboys had said a few Indians from a neighboring reservation usually dropped in for a visit about this time of year.
"No, I don't see any Indians," answered Nan, who had looked out of a window, after hurriedly getting dressed. "But I see a lot of the cowboys."
"Oh, maybe they're going after the Indians!" exclaimed Bert. "I'm going to ask mother if I can go along!"
"I want to go, too, and get an Indian doll!" exclaimed Nan.
But when they went out into the main room, where their father and mother were eating breakfast, and when the two Bobbsey twins had begged to be allowed to go with the cowboys to see the Indians, Mr. Bobbsey said: "This hasn't anything to do with Indians, Bert."
"What's it all about then?" asked the boy.